


Three Is the Perfect Crowd

by hazelNuts



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Future Fic, Hurt Stiles, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, POV Stiles, Pining, Polyamory, Weapons, established Braeden/Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-24 16:55:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4927627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazelNuts/pseuds/hazelNuts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After graduation Stiles needs to get away from Beacon Hills. So when Braeden invites him to join her and Derek on their hunting jobs, he eagerly accepts. It's all great, until Stiles realizes that he's in love with his friends and partners in crime, and he starts planning to leave.</p><p>For Teen Wolf Polyamory Saturday: Stiles Stilinski</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Is the Perfect Crowd

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really bad at tagging. If you think I forgot any, please let me know in the comments.

After graduation, Stiles had had enough of Beacon Hills and it’s drama. Everywhere he went brought up bad memories. Even the cemetery where he used to go to talk to his mom, wasn’t safe anymore. Isaac had come back after Christmas and taken back his old job as a gravedigger. They’d found him one morning, bleeding out and barely breathing after the Desert Wolf had gotten her hands on him.

So Stiles had needed to get away. The problem was, he didn’t have any money. He’d started badgering Derek for pictures about the places he and Braeden went, to live vicariously through them, but Derek sucked at taken pictures. Stiles had then asked Braeden to take the camera, despite being fairly certain she would simply ignore him. She hadn’t. She’d asked him if he wanted to join them.

Everyone had objected, about the dangers, about not going to college, but he didn’t have enough money for college anyway. And staying in Beacon Hills wasn’t exactly safe either, to the point that insurance policies here were the most expensive in the county.

Stiles had bought a ticket to Canada the next day, where Braeden and Derek were tracking some kind of snow monster.

He never thought the hunt could be such a thrill after three years of always being the prey. And it pays better, too. He sent the first couple checks home, to help his dad pay off their mountain of medical bills, all others went into his college fund. It took him less than a year to earn his entire tuition and living expenses.

Not that living the life of a supernatural bounty hunter is easy. Stiles has no idea how Braeden kept herself sane in the years she was on her own. It had seemed pretty cool at first, like living an episode of Supernatural, but it wore off after a month or so. Motel beds aren’t very comfortable and the walls are thin. They rarely sit down for a nice quiet, healthy meal, especially when they’re on a job, so they eat whenever they can. Flying isn’t an option with all their weapons, and several questionable substances, unless their client is rich enough to fly them privately. And after a couple days in a car or on a bike, Stiles always feels like there are more fumes than actual oxygen in his lungs.

Sometimes there are weeks of nothing to do but hang around the beach house Derek and Braeden had bought for whenever they have time off. No hunts, no monsters, no late nights or early mornings, just sleep and good food and a beach. And that was great too at first, until Stiles had seen Braeden kiss Derek on his cheek one morning. Braeden was wearing one of Derek’s shirts and Derek was sitting at the table, drinking coffee and wearing only sweatpants. Derek had turned his head a little, leaning into it, his mouth ticking up in a smile. The whole scene had been so domestic and sweet that Stiles’ heart had clenched in want.

He wanted that. He wanted someone to kiss him good morning, someone who couldn’t help but smile when he kissed them good morning. His reaction had been noticed by Derek who’d frowned at him.

‘Do I have the explain the whole bisexual, half-naked and hot thing again?’ Stiles had sighed, because this wasn’t the first time he’d had a “reaction” to seeing his two friends and partners in crime half-dressed. The first time had been the most awkward, though.

As usual, Derek and Braeden accepted the explanation, Braeden winking at him and Derek rolling his eyes, but looking fond.

And those reactions had made Stiles realize that he didn’t want a “someone”, he wanted Derek and Braeden. As quickly has the thought had bubbled up, Stiles pushed it down again. They’re his friends. He can’t do this to them. This is for him to deal with. Besides, it’s just a crush.

Most days Stiles believes that’s true, but there are also days that Stiles knows he’s completely and utterly screwed.

~

It’s been a difficult week. They’ve been chasing down a necklace with a magical gem set in it. The necklace itself isn’t hard to find, but actually getting their hands on it had proofs to be more difficult. The house it’s in is haunted (they always are), booby-trapped (of course), and then there is the little matter that the necklace doesn’t to want to leave the house. It took them a day to find the damn thing, but a week, no sleep, and blood, sweat and tears to actually get it to their employer, who, to top it off, doesn’t wanted to pay at first, because it doesn’t match her dress.

Stiles explodes. Derek only just manages to grab him before he can inflict any damage. Braeden proceeds to explain, very calmly, that while Derek has claws, and she has guns, Stiles is the one with the imagination and there is no telling what he will do if Derek lets him go. They leave the house with an extra three thousand dollars.

Exhausted, they crash at the first motel with a vacancy. The three of them will have to share a room, though, a room with only one bed. Stiles tries to argue that he’ll sleep on the floor, but Braeden and Derek ignore him and pull him onto the bed. Stiles has a momentary flash of panic where he thinks he might have to sleep pressed against either of his friends, but the bed is big enough that if Derek and Braeden curl close together, there is more than enough room left for Stiles. When the flash of panic has passed, Stiles is the first to fall asleep.

He is also the first to wake up, the low sun shining through the curtains, teasing at his eyelids. The sun isn’t what woke him, though. The arm slung over his waist and the hand possessively gripping his shirt, did that.

Stiles turns his head to Braeden’s sleeping form next to him. Her hair is loosely braided and a couple strands have escaped during the night. Barely resisting the urge to brush them away from her face, Stiles goes back to staring at the ceiling, catching the breath he seems to have lost.

He can’t do this anymore. It’s time to go. He’ll go to college, get a degree, a girlfriend or a boyfriend, forget about the way his heart tugs whenever he sees, or even thinks about, Derek and Braeden. He deserves that, and his friends deserve to be happy without feeling guilty about his unrequited love. He knows them well enough to know that they will feel guilty if they knew.

Stiles pulls his shirt out of Braeden’s grasp, slipping out from under her arm, and tiptoes to the bathroom, the beginnings of a plan already forming in his mind.

~

It was a unanimous decision to take at least a week off and relax at the beach house after the necklace ordeal. Stiles takes that time to research colleges, tuition, and if he’ll be able to start anywhere soon. It’s September and classes have already started, but you never know if you don’t try.

Derek and Braeden have both remarked on how silent he’s been, and on how much time he’s spending behind his laptop. They’ve made a kind of a rule to do none supernatural things in between jobs, like going to the movies, to dinner, go for swims, but Stiles has been urging Derek and Braeden to spent some quality time together, just the two of them.

‘You’re leaving,’ Braeden says one night.

Stiles is sitting on the back porch, looking out over the ocean. The evenings are getting colder and he has a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, his hands wrapped around a mug of hot tea. He looks back over his shoulder to check if Derek’s heard what she said.

‘He’s working on the car,’ Braeden assures him. ‘I don’t think he knows. He just knows that something’s up.’

Stiles sighs and huddles a little further into his blanket. He’d hoped to avoid this conversation for at least a couple more weeks.

‘I think it’s time. This wasn’t supposed to go on for this long anyway. I’ve been looking for colleges.’

‘I know. You left your browser open.’

Stiles huffs out a laugh at his own stupidity. When he looks up, Braeden is smiling fondly at him.

‘I’m really not as stealthy as I like to think, am I?’

‘No, you’re not.’ Braeden’s smile vanishes and her eyes turn sad, and Stiles knows what she’s about to say. ‘You have to tell him.’

‘Tell who what?’ Derek interrupts them as he steps out on the porch. His white tank top and his hands are smeared with grease. There’s even a smudge of it on his cheek. It really isn’t fair that the guy manages to look hot and adorable at the same time, Stiles thinks.

‘Tell you that you really need to start washing your hands before coming into the house,’ Stiles admonishes. ‘You left grease all over the door again.’

Derek looks back at where there is indeed a smear of grease on the door. He looks down at his hands with a pout, but when he looks up again there is a mischievous glint in his eyes.

‘Don’t you dare,’ Stiles warns, putting down his mug.

‘Derek,’ Braeden says. She’s shuffling back putting more distance between herself and her grease smeared boyfriend.

Derek pounces and both Stiles and Braeden roll away from him. Derek growls playfully, his eyes flashing blue. There aren’t many people left by the beach in September, so the three of them have no qualms in letting their peals of laughter fill the quiet night.

~

Braeden doesn’t talk to him about his plan again, letting him set his own pace. She does throw him the occasional look. These looks double when Derek starts to get vocal about his worry on Stiles’ pulling away from them.

The air between them has changed. There is a slowly growing feeling of misery, it builds over the next couple weeks until that’s almost all there is. Stiles hates it. He keeps telling himself it’s for the best, that it’ll make the final break easier, but that doesn’t stop it from hurting. He wants to curl up with his friends on the couch and watch a movie, the way they used to. He wants to throw popcorn at Derek with Braeden. He wants him and Derek to tease Braeden about her terrible cooking. He wants their friendship back.

It comes to a head when Stiles declines another invitation to have dinner with them.

‘What did I do?’ Derek asks.

Stiles feels his heart clench at the desperation on Derek’s face.

‘Derek-‘

‘No. You’ve been pulling away for weeks. And I know you know what’s going on,’ Derek, says turning to Braeden. ‘So it must be me.’

‘It’s not you,’ Stiles assures him. It’s not the entire truth, and by the expression on Derek’s face he knows that. Stiles lowers himself into a chair. ‘I’m leaving.’

If Stiles had thought the desperation on Derek’s face was bad, it’s nothing compared to the heartbroken look it has now.

‘Why?’

‘This was only supposed to be for a year. It’s time, okay. I’m already looking into colleges.’

‘So you won’t be leaving until next year?’ Derek asks, hope in his eyes.

Stiles shakes his eyes, wanting to cry when he sees that little spark of hope die. ‘Berkeley says I might be able to start there next semester, if I can come in for an interview before winter break.’

‘That’s still-‘

‘I’ll go back to Beacon Hills first. Stay with my dad for a while. Learn how to be a civilian again.’ He tries to laugh at his own attempt at a joke, but the muscles in his face won’t cooperate.

‘That makes sense,’ Derek nods, looking down at his hands. ‘If I hadn’t asked you about it now, when would you have told me?’

‘When I had a definitive plan. And I know you think Braeden knows everything, but all she knew was that I was looking into colleges.’

‘Did we-‘ Derek starts, but Stiles rushes at him, wrapping Derek in a tight hug and cutting off whatever self-deprecating thing he knew Derek was about to say. He pulls Braeden, who’d been standing next to Derek, into the hug as well.

‘It’s time for me to go. I’ll miss you both like crazy,’ Stiles mumbles into Derek’s shoulder. It’s the first thing he’s said that is the complete truth.

~

Stiles stamps his feet and blows on his hands before tucking them back under his armpits. It’s his last job before he leaves and he’s the getaway driver. Kind of. That’ll only happen if things go bad and Derek and Braeden manage to wake up the hag they’re supposed be freeing a young fairy from.

Derek usually does the outside things whenever they’re in a cold environment, being more resilient to it, but Stiles has been distracted all day, and this mission would’ve required an attention span he doesn’t have at the moment.

He let them believe that it’s because he’ll be going home after this job. And it’s not that he’s not excited to see his dad again, or about Berkeley. Lydia will be there and Malia is working on getting enough credits to transfer next year. Scott will only be an hour of breaking speed limits away. But what’s actually on Stiles’ mind is a conversation he overheard between Derek and Braeden the night before. He hadn’t been able to sleep, feeling like there was a wrinkle in their plan that needed smoothing out.

He’d been about to knock on their motel room door when he heard Derek say, ‘We need to tell him.’

‘Why? So we can guild him into staying? Or force him into something he’s not ready for?’

‘That’s not-‘

‘I know that’s not what you meant,’ Braeden had said, her voice going so soft that Stiles had to strain to hear her. ‘But if he wants to leave, we need to let him.’

‘I don’t think he wants to.’

‘You hope he doesn’t.’

‘So do you.’

‘I do.’

Stiles’ mind had raced to figure out what they were talking about. Him, definitely, but what was it that Derek wanted to tell him? Was it about a job? Something about the pack? Something about Derek or Braeden? And why did Braeden object? He’d wanted to barge in and demand they tell him, but their voices had gone so fragile at the end.

He’d gone back to his room, the wrinkle in the plan forgotten.

Stiles sees something move in the corner of eye and he remembers why the wrinkle was so important. Hags are never alone. They always have brownies or goblins helping them. Stiles fumbled for his gun, but his hands are too cold. Damn Montana weather.

By the time he has his gun out, it’s too late. The goblin’s seen him and is lumbering right at him. There’s no other way to describe the way a goblin moves. They lumber, but they lumber at great speed. Stiles gets in one shot, hitting the creatures arm, before it’s on him. It bowls into him, tumbling the both of them to the ground. Stiles drops the gun, and as he turns his head to look for it, sharp teeth dig into his throat.

The little monster is trying to tear his throat out, Stiles realizes. He feels blood sliding down his neck as the teeth sink in deeper. He tries to scream but the pain is too great and the air too cold to get enough air in his lungs. The last thing Stiles hears before he passes out is an angry roar and the blast of a shotgun.

~

‘Stiles! Don’t you da-‘

~

‘We need t-‘

~

‘We should take him to a hospital.’

‘The nearest is through a hundred miles of frozen woods. We’d never get him there in time, and the journey cou-‘

~

‘We should’ve told him when we could.’

‘You’re right. We’ll tell him wh-‘

~

‘I’ve lost too many people. Derek’s lost too many people. I’m not sure what will happen if we lose you, too. At least when you were just going to college we had a chance of getting you back. So, that’s what nee-‘

~

‘Do you think he’s warm enough?’

‘He already has five blankets piled on top of him, Der. I think he’s more likely to overheat than get hypothermia.’

‘Do you think he’s too warm?’

‘I think you need some sleep. I’ll watch over him.’

‘I don’t know if I c-‘

~

When Stiles opens his eyes, he’s looking at the wooden ceiling of the motel they’d been staying in. He’s covered in blankets and something warm is pressing against his side. He tries to turn his head to see what it is, but there is something pulling at the skin of his neck. When he tries again, he feels pain shoot through him. He takes in a shuddering breath and balls his hands into fists to try push it down. One hand closes easily, the other has something warm and small in it, another hand.

‘Stiles?’ Braeden’s head appears above him. She’s frowning and there is worry in her eyes.

He tries to say something, but the warmth next him moves, jostling him, as Derek sits up. Stiles groans in pain and immediately there are careful fingers brushing along his jawline. The pain disappears, but it only makes room for the strange feeling of really needing to pee and being very thirsty at the same time.

‘I need to piss,’ is the first thing he says. His voice is hoarse and the words crack in his dry throat.

Braeden and Derek laugh in relief, and then help him out of the bed.

‘You hungry?’

‘Thirsty.’

Derek helps him to the bathroom. It’s nothing they haven’t done before after two years of going always going towards to the danger, but Stiles hates feeling helpless and he grumbles all the way through Derek helping him with his bathroom business.

When they get back in the main room, there is a glass of water with a straw in it waiting for him. Braeden has arranged the pillows so he can sit comfortably propped up against them. His friends fawn over him, fluffing the pillows, rearranging the blankets, until they’re happy with everything before sliding under the blankets themselves, flanking him.

Braeden holds up the glass of water for him, something that forces her to sit sideways and her legs are half draped of Stiles’. Derek has his arm around Stiles’ shoulder so he can drain away any pain directly from the skin next to the bandage on Stiles’ throat.

‘I’ll change that after you’re done drinking,’ Braeden nods at the bandage. ‘I stitched it up as best I could, but it’ll definitely leave a scar.’

‘We’ll match,’ Stiles smirks around the straw.

Derek huffs and they lapse into silence again, the only sound in the room Stiles slurping up the water.

Even if the circumstances aren’t exactly happy, this moment is more than Stiles ever hoped to get and he doesn’t want it to end. It makes something bittersweet twist in his chest.

When the glass is empty, Braeden puts it back on the nightstand. Stiles expects her to get out and get their bag of medical supplies, but she doesn’t. Instead, Braeden glances at Derek who nods. Both their faces go wary and guarded.

Stiles immediately feels the panic brewing. Something bad has happened. He’s fine, so it must be his da-

‘It’s nothing bad,’ Derek says, reading his mind.

Stiles relaxes, but raises his eyebrows in confusion.

‘We need to tell you something,’ Braeden begins. This must be the something that Derek had wanted to tell him before they left for the hag’s hovel. ‘We should’ve told you sooner, but we thought we’d wait for you to make the first move. And then you decided to go to college. And we figured it would be best to let you go. But then you had to get your throat almost torn out.’

‘I’m sorry, big guy,’ Stiles says, grinning at Derek. ‘I know that’s something you’ve been planning since day one.’

Derek rolls his eyes. ‘That’s really not the point here, Stiles.’

‘Right. So, what is?’

‘We love you,’ Braeden says.

Stiles feels hope bloom in his chest before he stamps it down again. Of course they love him. They’re friends, partners in crime. They’re family, pack.

‘We’re in love with you,’ Derek expands when Stiles doesn’t say anything.

This time, the hope explodes in his chest and turns into happiness. Stiles tries to tone it down, because there is no way Derek is saying that. He must be delirious from the blood loss, or goblin spit or something.

‘We mean it,’ Braeden whispers, searching for his hand and squeezing it when she finds it.

‘Oh my g- And you seriously expected me to make the first move?’

‘Uhm.’

‘You’re my friends, who are dating. Each other,’ he adds for emphasis.

‘Sorry,’ Derek mumbles. He nuzzles into Stiles’ cheek apologetically.

‘You better make it up to me.’ The wide yawn that follows that statement undermines how serious Stiles is about it, and Derek and Braeden immediately start fussing again.

‘I still need to change your bandage,’ Braeden says, sliding out of the bed.

‘I’ll help you lie down.’

Stiles grumbles at the loss of their warmth, but doesn’t have the energy to really protest. Besides, they’re both lying next to him again a couple minutes later.

‘I love you two, too, by the way,’ he mumbles before falling asleep again, Derek’s fingers back to brushing against the skin of his neck and Braeden’s fingers tangled with his own.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [tumblr](http://fandom-madnessess.tumblr.com/).


End file.
